All New Zealand English-medium state schools are required to ensure that their strategic and curriculum planning and implementation reflect the vision and intent of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) from the beginning of 2010.
This means ensuring that school operations and classroom programmes reflect:
- the principles and values outlined in the curriculum
- full coverage of the key competencies, essential learning areas, and learning strands
- selected coverage of the achievement objectives (according to identified student needs).
School leaders, teachers, students, and parents/whānau/iwi at Taihape Area School (TAS) have worked in partnership to undertake an extensive programme of change from 2006 to the present. This has involved reviewing and revising the school’s vision for achievement, its culture for learning, and its curriculum structures and implementation processes, and has provided the school with opportunities to develop clear reflections of the vision and intent of the NZC in its school operations.
Drivers for the programme of change
Implementing the vision and intent of the NZC was not the main driving force behind the programme of change the school undertook. Instead, this programme emanated from school and community identification of some achievement and engagement issues that needed to be addressed with some urgency.
In 2006, led by a newly appointed principal, the school and community recognised that:
- student achievement, particularly Māori student achievement, was significantly lower than expected
- curriculum delivery processes lacked depth
- student engagement in learning was not always apparent (indicated by widespread student absenteeism)
- parent/whānau/iwi perception of the school appeared to be negative.
Changes implement NZC vision and intent
The school has addressed these issues by promoting more open communication and extensive participation by teachers, students, and parents/whānau/iwi in school decision making and curriculum development processes, and has made some strategic and deliberate decisions. Through its programme of change, it has accepted the guidance the NZC provides for developing 'the competencies [young people] need for study, work, and lifelong learning to go on to realise their potential' (NZC, p.6).
It has undertaken changes that reflect the vision promoted by the NZC of students as 'confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners' (NZC, p.8). This is now apparent in both the school’s documentation and its operations. The school’s recently revised charter suggests that 'Our young people will be confident, connected, lifelong learners'. Changes to school programmes and curriculum delivery (especially the development of curriculum options and programme-negotiating powers for students) appear to have generated stronger engagement by students in learning.
Within school operations, the school has recognised the principles of curriculum development promoted by the NZC (p.9), the values for students that are considered 'important or desirable' by the NZC (p.10), the key competencies regarded as 'the key to learning in every learning area' (NZC, p.12), and the elements of effective pedagogy the NZC (pp.34–36) suggests are most beneficial for promoting student learning.
High expectations for student achievement and the notions of ‘excellence’ and ‘curriculum coherence’ are promoted through changes to curriculum structure and timetabling, design of new learner-centred programmes that promote concepts rather than contexts, and development of greater subject choice for students. Such changes have been generated through teachers’ ongoing inquiry 'into the impact of their teaching on students' (NZC, p.35). It is worth noting that student achievement has risen significantly since 2006 – note the principal’s recent comment that 'our NCEA data is really really good now. It’s gone from the bottom 25 well up into the 70 per cents.'
Links to the Treaty of Waitangi and diversity are made through provision of programmes and activities that enable all teachers and students to acquire and/or extend their knowledge of te reo Māori me ona tikanga. They are also made through the development of programmes that make use of local community resources.
The important competency of ‘managing self’ is promoted through the introduction of curriculum options, through allowing students to negotiate their learning programmes and through a stronger focus on student goal setting. This reflects the school’s commitment to encouraging reflective thought and action. Many students now appear to be able to 'establish personal goals, make plans, manage projects, and set high standards' for themselves (NZC, p.12). Teachers also report positive changes in student behaviour, which they link to students having an increased sense of purpose about what they are learning.
The notions of ‘learning to learn’ and ‘innovation, inquiry, and curiosity’ are promoted through classroom practices that promote the teacher as a facilitator of shared learning and reflect the school’s newly developed mission statement for students: 'Taihape Area School – leading me to lead my learning'.
One of the most significant changes appears to relate to the advocated need for the school curriculum to 'engage the support of [students’] families, whānau, and communities' (NZC, p.9). Through generating processes for genuine partnership with the community (for example, through iwi representation on school governing bodies, through regular hui on school issues with iwi and whānau, through development of regular, meaningful, and well-attended teacher–student–school dean–whānau celebrations of achievement and goal setting, and monitoring meetings), the school appears to have recognised the international and local research evidence about the 'beneficial effects [on student achievement] of collaborative and sustainable relationships between teachers, family, and whānau' (Te Mana Korero: Relationships for Learning, p.9).
A sense of partnership
In relation to its large Māori student population, TAS also appears to have recognised the Ministry of Education’s belief that 'Māori students are best served by schools when they are regarded as members of a whānau: that when a Māori child stands before you, behind them is a whānau, hapū, iwi, and their tipuna' (Te Mana Korero: Relationships for Learning, p.3).
This renewed sense of partnership has led to iwi development of a set of five core values for the school (manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, tino rangatiratanga, wairuatanga, te reo, and tikanga). The school can readily align these local values with the key competences that the NZC advocates as essential for student development.
The NZC’s expectation is that each school must decide 'how to give effect to the national curriculum in ways that best address the particular needs, interests, and circumstances of the school’s students and community' (NZC, p.37). TAS has particularly recognised this expectation through its newly developed curriculum (especially its range of learner-centred options), which has been generated through deep and honest analysis of student achievement data and student engagement in learning, and through genuine consultation with the community (especially whānau and iwi) and supported by ongoing professional learning opportunities for teachers.
The principal of TAS recognises strong links between the vision and intent of the NZC and the programme of change the school has undertaken when he states that '[the NZC] is really powerful. We’ve got a document that is about learning and thinking and problem-solving.'
An ongoing process
The school recognises that the programme of change – and hence, curriculum review – must be ongoing and will not have a finite end. Changes need to be made continually in relation to student needs and community expectations. As one of the teachers says, 'We’re not going to stop changing, we haven’t got an end product … Our circumstances here will change and the community’s aspirations will change.'
But TAS works hard to foster shared ownership and acceptance of change by its school leaders, teachers, students, and parents/whānau/iwi. It recognises that change and responsibilities need to be ‘distributed’ among all key stakeholders and made manageable for everyone involved.
Links between the school’s programme of change (2006 to the present) and the vision and intent of the NZC can be noted through careful reflection on the clips that accompany these notes.
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